From: "Karl Carlile" <expresspost-AT-tinet.ie> Subject: Re: M-TH: A Small Rant Date: Sun, 31 Aug 1997 16:23:01 -0700 KARL CARLILE: Hi Bill! Your posrting was most appreciated by anyway. Your posting contains a subjectivist standpoint which I, for one, cannot su*bscribe to. BILL: The word support to me implies a level of conscious approval that I would not attribute to the greens. I would have found this a more plausible line had you argued that environmental catastrophe was a natural consequence of the unfolding of the logic of capitalism and hence could not be addressed by a reformist approach such as that of the greens. Even in this form I would probably disagree as while capitalism may succumb to an environmental disaster(s) this is by no means necessarily so as capitalism has proved highly malleable in the past and may well morph into a form that is both compatible with environmental constraints and the profit motive. Such a capitalism would probably be bad news for the vast majority of people, how about an enviro-fascist state or enviro-imperilism? KARL: The point, Bill, is that capitalism is in fact progressively destroying the environment in the interests of capital accumulation and at the expense of the working people of the world. However this is not tantamount to saying tha capitalism will inevitably destroy the entire environment even though it entails the elimination of the very conditons of its continued existence, the conditions for profit maximisation. Clearly it is not in capital's interest to eliminate the conditions necessary for the accumulation of capital. However the "logic" of capital is a logic that tends to undermine its own very existence: the creation of the conditions for socialist revolution. BILL: The word support to me implies a level of conscious approval that I would not attribute to the greens. KARL: Clearly, in general, one cannot claim that there is, in a sense, "a level of onscious approval of the envirnomental destruction by capitalism on the part of the greens". Yet neither is there, in a sense, a conscious level of approval of famine, wars, high unemployment and relatively low living standards in the world today on the part of many bourgoeis politicians and ideologues. Yet they are, in effect, supportive of such phenomena whether they know it or not. The evidence for this is provided by the character of their politics and ideology and not by their subjective intentions: BILL: .... capitalism has proved highly malleable in the past and may well morph into a form that is both compatible with environmental constraints and the profit motive. KARL: Your above conjecture bears the hallmarks of reformism. One might equally say that capitalism "may well morph into a form that is both compatible with" the class interests of the working class "and the profit motive." However capitalism is no more able to avoid progressive environmental destruction than it is the explotiation of labour power. By way of conclusion: There is present in capital a tendency to progressively destroy the environment. However I cannot pre-empt history and predict that it will inevtably destroy the environment as we have known it. I am no desciple of Cassandra although, if I recall correctly, she did prove correct in at least one of her prophecies... However the only way to eliminate these destructive tendencies is to abolish capitalism and replace it with comnunist relations. Greetings, Karl Karl --- from list marxism-thaxis-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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